1. Field of the Invention
The subject invention relates to sunshields and, more particularly, to sunshields or shades for protecting the interior of motor vehicles against sun rays and blaze, particularly during outdoor parking and the like.
2. Information Disclosure Statement
The following disclosure statement is made pursuant to the duty of disclosure imposed by law and formulated in 37 CFR 1.56(a). No representation is hereby made that information thus disclosed in fact constitutes prior art, inasmuch as 37 CFR 1.56(a) relies on a materiality concept which depends on uncertain and inevitably subjective elements of substantial likelihood and reasonableness and inasmuch as a growing attitude appears to require citation of material which might lead to a discovery of pertinent material though not necessarily being of itself pertinent. Also, the following comments contain conclusions and observations which have only been drawn or become apparent after conception of the subject invention or which contrast the subject invention or its merits against the background of developments which may be subsequent in time or priority.
Also, no preamble of any statement of invention or claim hereof is intended to represent that the content of that preamble is prior art, particularly where one or more recitations in a preamble serve the purpose or providing antecedents for the remainder of a statement of invention or claim.
Also, no sequential recitation or listing in any claim, summary of the invention or other part hereof is intended as a limitation to the provision of such means or provision or performance of such steps or features in that or any other particular sequence, unless the claimed sequence is the or an essential feature of the claimed combination over the prior art.
As may be seen from page 181 of the May 1953 issue of POPULAR SCIENCE, attempts to "keep your car from heating like a greenhouse when you must park in direct sunlight," go back for many years. In particular, it was then suggested to cut white cardboard shades for all windows, making each shade 1/8" too wide or big, the idea being, "Spring them in place and they will stay put." Major problems of that proposal included the considerable skill and manual dexterity actually required for making and installing such cardboard shades as specified, and the fact that the combination of that teaching in effect resulted in a glass/cardboard laminate through which heat from the sun could transfer from the outside to the inside of the car without any substantial intervening air layer or circulation.
The same probably applied to the windshield heat reflector disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,880,461 by George Paul Flanagan, issued Apr. 29, 1975.
None of these proposals ever found any significant public use, not even after ten millions of my motor vehicle sunshields have been sold by my CARCOOL Company and by several licensees, as mentioned, for instance, in the article "Folding Car Shades Are a Red-Hot Item in Sun Belt," published Monday, Sept. 8, 1986 in the Business section of the Los Angeles Times. As therein confirmed, I am holding the patent rights for that kind of sunshield, as apparent from my U.S. Pat. No. 4,202,396, issued May 13, 1980.
Even though more than twenty-five millions of my sunshields have now been sold, their operation and effect still cannot satisfactorily be explained by the state of the art of scientific technology. In an age where exponents of scientific knowledge carried the greenhouse effect into outer space to explain the working of the universe, my sunshield simply defies the greenhouse effect which, in so many words, insists that "Once the heat is in (e.g. through the windshield and in the air space between the windshield and my unfolded sunshield), it has lost energy and cannot go back out where it came from." Yet, the fact observable on any sunny day is that my sunshield not only prevents sun damage to dashboards and car interiors, but also keeps the inside of cars measurably cooler during hot days.
My sunshields practically from the start made provisions for a car's rearview mirror behind the windshield. This is also emphasized in U.S. Pat. No. 4,652,039, by Roger H. Richards, issued Mar. 24, 1987 to one of my licensees, and going to the extent of cutting the material of that windshield shade "out of the top, so that the shade will not contact a rearview mirror."
Even though the removable curtain assembly of U.S. Pat. No. 4,647,102, issued Mar. 3, 1987 to Mozaffar Ebrahimzadeh, uses a pleated structure drawable from one side of the windshield through the space in between windshield and rearview mirror to the other side of the windshield, that patent still points out that the pleated panel may have a cutout in the top section thereof in order to accommodate the rearview mirror.